12 October 2009

"It's a finger of G-d"

WEEKS of earthquake activity in the Asia-Pacific region have triggered a shift in the view of some seismologists, who are now considering the possibility that the recent devastating cluster of quakes are related.

Yet another earthquake was reported as having struck the Pacific Island nation of Tonga yesterday, one of several to hit the region in two weeks, including the deadly West Sumatra earthquake, the quake that just hours before triggered the Samoan tsunami, and Thursday's series of major tremors in Vanuatu.

...Although it was still difficult to determine whether the earthquake cluster was anything more than "a remarkable coincidence", he said geologists would be looking at the events of the past fortnight with keen interest.

"It's certainly quite unusual. I haven't seen it in my professional career," Dr Cummins said.

"There has been no sequence of earthquakes occurring in such rapid succession in such different locations across the globe."

Veteran earthquake-watcher Gary Gibson, who said more than a week ago that he was treating quakes thousands of kilometres apart as "coincidence", said yesterday that he was re-evaluating that hypothesis.

"I can no longer keep using the response it's all a big coincidence, can I?" said Dr Gibson, a senior seismologist with the Seismology Research Centre at Environmental Systems and Services Victoria.

..."For two great earthquakes to occur within hours in such a way, it is abnormal."